There never was a patriarchy, and there isn't one now. In related news, Mr. JB can’t do shit without running it by me first.

Following on the heels of the absolutely terrible article by Lindy West that all the injustice faced by men (past and present) is the result of the “patriarchy” and that only feminism can address these issues, I thought I would spend some time today looking at the idea of “patriarchy” a little more closely.

A reader named Sherlock sent me a link to an article, written by a woman named Susan Carol Rogers, called Female Forms of Power and the Myth of Male Dominance: A Model of Female/Male Interaction in Peasant Society. Here is the link:

It’s a fairly long slog, at 29 pages, but I’m going to give you the quick and dirty summary.

Susan starts by noting that anthropology as a discipline makes a couple of sweeping generalizations and assumptions that directly affects how they understand and investigate power and authority. Anthropologists typically assume that the only forms of power that matter are those that are codified and formalized: things like rules and laws and positions in political institutions. There is no room in their observations for informal power. The mayor has power. The mayor’s wife has none.

This focus on only formal aspects of power and authority makes it seem as if male dominance is virtually universal across human societies. To make matters even more complicated, both men and women behave as if men are dominant, when in reality, the situation is much more nuanced.

In the peasant societies Susan explores, women control a major portion of the resources and make most of the decisions regarding how those resources are used, in effect, wielding the greater power.

Why would they do that? Why act like men have all the power, when in reality, it’s women who have most of it?

This is the absolute kicker in Susan’s article. She gets this 100% right, if you ask me. She starts by defining a myth as a belief that one can see is factually untrue. Take the idea that black men have bigger penis sizes than any other racial group. It’s a myth that’s been repeated so often, even black MEN, who are most likely to have seen a black penis (their own, for starters) tend to believe it. But it’s not true. It’s part of a racist narrative to define black men as animals, and it has its roots in the history of American slavery.

We’re going to come back to that idea, and talk about how myths can be productive, but also incredibly destructive when society no longer perceives the myth as a myth.

In the groups that Susan is looking at, neither men nor women believe the myth that men are dominant, but both men and women behave as if that is, in fact, true.

Why?

Both groups want to think of themselves as having distinct advantages, values and prestige relative to one another, and they want those attributes to be distributed fairly, and in such a way that neither group feels like they’re getting the shaft. They want to seem like “winners” to one another. Furthermore, both men and women see themselves as mutually dependent upon one another, which, when you come right down to the very basic reality of reproduction is absolutely, unequivocally true.

Technology, driven by the dominant ideology of female supremacy, is working furiously to eliminate men from the reproductive process, creating embryos that are genetically identical to the mother, by triggering a process called parthenogenesis. I’ve had fun with that one before.

Let’s get back to Susan. She observes that men and women in peasant societies understand perfectly that they are dependent upon one another, and seek to create a social structure that makes both men and women feel valued and that they are being treated respectfully and fairly.

What resources do women control?

In peasant societies, the key unit of economic and social production is the nuclear family. Husband, wife, children, and perhaps extended members of the family in the form of grandparents. Jill Dubisch, also trying to evaluate the power that women hold in peasant societies, came up with four criteria to evaluate how evenly power is distributed between husbands and wives:

How respectfully did the spouses treat one another, both privately and publicly?

How often or much did the spouses interfere with one another’s domains?

How were family resources allocated?

How were decisions regarding plans for children made?

Here is an example of how that works: in Greek villages, women control all the family finances, because they take principal responsibility for producing the food/goods that will be sold at the local market. The women make the bread, churn the butter, weave the cloth, collect the eggs, raise the goats, make the cheese, etc. They attend the markets, set the prices, and collect the payment.

So far, they are the primary drivers of the family’s prosperity and comfort. A man without a hard-working wife like this is well and truly fucked. This kind of scenario has been in effect since the beginning of written culture.

One of the my favorite passages from the Bible is Proverbs 31, commonly called, the Virtuous Woman. And because I am an atheist, I absolutely want scripture read at my funeral! I also want to be buried in my Star Trek uniform, but that’s another story.

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

The heart of her husband safely trusts in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.

She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

She seeks wool, and flax, and works willingly with her hands.

She is like the merchants’ ships; she brings her food from afar.

She rises also while it is yet night, and gives meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.

She considers a field, and buys it: with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.

She girds her loins with strength, and strengthens her arms.

She perceives that her merchandise is good: her candle goes not out by night.

She lays her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.

She stretches out her hand to the poor; yea, she reaches forth her hands to the needy.

She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.

She makes herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.

Her husband is known in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land.

She makes fine linen, and sells it; and delivers girdles unto the merchant.

Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.

She opens her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.

She looks well to the ways of her household, and eats not the bread of idleness.

Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.

Many daughters have done virtuously, but you excel beyond them all.

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that fears the Lord, she shall be praised.

Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

Proverbs 31: 10-31

http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/homefam/prov31.htm

Let her own works praise her in the gates. So lovely.

Look carefully at what our virtuous woman’s husband is doing. He praises her, basks in how her hard work improves his reputation and he sits with the elders.

Now, the typical feminist response to this is wahhhhhh… look at how hard that poor woman works…wahhhhh… her husband just sits on his ass doing nothing…. wahhhhh… she’s so abused and exploited….

Which ignore two realities completely: first of all, this woman and her family are clearly very affluent. Not everyone is. That’s life. The only thing that matters is that any family that works hard has a CHANCE to be affluent. She may consider a field and decide to plant an olive grove, but you can be damn sure she ain’t out in the fields doing the work herself.

Who does the backbreaking labor in peasant society, or any society for that matter?

Yeah, that would be men. Generally poor men, struggling to get a foot on the ladder and pull their whole family up.

Secondly, the affluent men are not sitting on their asses doing nothing: they are creating the political and social structures that make it possible for their economies to work. They set the terms of economic exchange, they mediate disputes, they enact laws and enforce them.

In other words, they formalize power and authority and create the political context that governs how the whole society works. And when ONLY the formal structures of power are examined, they appear to be completely and utterly dominant.

But they’re not. So Virtuous spends the day managing her male workforce out toiling in the olive grove, she gets the new linen ready for market, she makes sure her maidens and children are taken care of, she packs up a basket for the local poor folks, she does all the work her day requires.

Then Mr. Virtuous comes home, cracks her in the face for backtalk, takes her money, decides he doesn’t like what the kids are up to, complains about her new tapestry and then demands dinner?

My fucking ass he does.

But that’s what the myth of patriarchy wants us to believe, isn’t it? That men are exploitive and abusive and violent and controlling and they hold all the reins of power and won’t hesitate to use them to harm and confine and limit the lives of women. Their wives, their sisters, their daughters, their mothers.

And in doing so, destroy the whole society.

The only solution to this terrible problem of male abusiveness and exploitation is to take all the public, formal power away from them while still retaining all the control over family resources. That’s feminism in a nutshell. Remove men from power, while still maintaining all of women’s traditional power.

Abortion laws, reproductive rights (for women only), the rise of single motherhood, divorce, custody and division of property laws are all ways to enshrine women’s absolute control over family resources. And all the while, women are exhorted to “lean in”, fight for more power and influence and control of formal power structures.

More women in corporate board rooms.

More women in government.

More women in the judiciary.

More women at the top of every formal power structure we have.

Traditional peasant societies could see that women produced and controlled most of the actual, finite resources in society, including the labor of less affluent men. And they could see how that might make men feel a bit vulnerable and defensive. Who wants to be treated like a utility? Like oxen, good for labor and then the soup pot?

So both men and women agreed to allow men to control most of the formal power structures, none of which can exist without the labor of women and poor men. And to make certain that both men and women felt equally valued and appreciated, they created a myth of male dominance, all the while knowing that the true balance of power swayed heavily in favor of women.

Everybody understood that the idea of male dominance was a MYTH. A story designed to engender respect and mutual prosperity. And for thousands of years, it worked perfectly.

In traditional families like my own, that myth is alive and well. Technically, Mr. JB has all the power. The formal power. He earns all the money, and he handles all the bills. He makes all the financial decisions, without input or interference from me. I am completely dependent upon him for survival. And when his Boss calls up and asks if Mr.JB can take on an extra project, the first thing he says is, “I’ll have to check with the boss”.

That would be me.

Because at the end of the day, if I’m not happy, and I don’t feel respected or valued or appreciated, his life is going to be very unpleasant. And it works both ways. Can he take on the extra project? Does he want to? How important is this to him? Will it make him happy? That’s how I make my decision.

That’s how we make decisions together.

Remember the whole myth of the black male penis thing? I’m going to link to a post at The Good Men Project, although I generally don’t like that site. It’s worth a read because the writer talks about the origins of that particular myth and how it has come to harm black men in particular.

It harms them because the myth is no longer seen as a myth, but as an incontrovertible truth.

And that’s what happened with the myth of male dominance. At some point our culture has forgotten that this is a STORY, with a very commendable purpose: it’s a story that assures mutual respect and admiration. A group of angry women decided that shutting women out of formal power structures was a problem that needed to be fixed.

And you know, fair enough. Okay. Let’s get more women into formal power structures, even though they show little inclination or desire to be there.

BUT, in exchange for that access, women will have to give up access to traditional female power structures.

And that isn’t happening. Women want both male and female powers. Preferably ALL the power. The right to control men by controlling the most precious resource any culture has: children, and the right to hold the reins of formal, institutionalized power that governs all our lives.

That reduces men, and poor men in particular, to mere social utilities, with little value and correspondingly little respect. And that is just what is happening. Men are belittled in the media and their concerns scoffed.

The rates at which they take their own lives are ignored, or worse, they get blamed for the very real despair of knowing you are nothing but a tool, easily discarded when your usefulness has run its course.

Feminists continually point to the fact that men continue to dominate formal power structures as evidence for patriarchy. Their suggested redress is to wrest formal power from men and give it to women, while still holding on to their own traditional advantages and informal powers.

We have a word to describe the society that will eventually evolve if such an effort is successful. It’s not patriarchy.

It’s matriarchy.

It’s quite an impressive inversion, isn’t it? When feminists use the word “patriarchy” what they are opposing is respect and the equal attribution of power and control between the sexes. When feminists identify the “patriarchy” as a problem, they are in effect saying that valuing the contributions of men and women equally, and in a way that is designed to make both men and women feel as if they are being treated fairly is a problem.

The reality is that power skews to women. That’s easy to ignore or even outright deny, because that power is informal. The balance is restored when formal power rests in the hands of men. And despite 70 years of shrieking and protesting and gnashing of teeth, formal power DOES reside mostly in the hands of men.

Patriarchy has never existed in the form that feminism insists. And it has never been the problem.

On the contrary. It’s the solution.

Let’s bring back patriarchy. And let our own works praise us in the gates.

Great take on patriarchy. There are so many ways to approach the topic that are valid and reasonable. None of the valid and reasonable approaches are the feminist version.

The_other_Steve

Magnificent!
Susan Carol Rogers’ paper will certainly become one of my more noted references.

The whole picture reminds me of certain tenets in psychology, with certain traits and behaviors being conscious and expressed externally, while others remain unconscious and are repressed or internalized, often only revealing themselves in stressful situations.

If you want I can shoot you into space and use a photon torpedo to blast your remains to atoms. I should have my version of the Enterprise done in a few more years, once I move more junk out of the garage.

“Their suggested redress is to wrest formal power from men and give it to women, while still holding on to their own traditional advantages and informal powers.”

I have suggested to women if they want all the advantages of being a man and a woman and none of the responsibilities. For example, I’ve suggested, at the minimum (and this is an easy one) they might want to ask a man to get a cup of coffee. They can’t even do that – but they think they should be able to get easy indoor high-paying jobs with some silly degree like Human Resources or Education.

But if you beat Zephram to the punch, doesn’t that mean the Borg will target 2013 Earth?

You will be assimilated.

Resistance is futile.

Hmmmm.

That could explain a lot, actually.

Steve

Charles Dickens, in the voice of his character Mr. Bumble, exposed the myth of male power in 1838:

“That is no excuse,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “You were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and indeed are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.”

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass- a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience- by experience.”

Mark

Many historians in the field of women’s history (usually female historians) regularly uncover areas in which women held considerably more power than previously thought. This proposes a big dilemma for feminists, though I’m not sure if they’ve noticed yet. On one hand they want to be the powerless oppressed victim, and they also want to be able to blame everything in history on men; on the other hand, they also want to have played more than bit part in the history of humanity, and to remember women as having been more than impotent slaves curled up in the corner while men did everything worth remembering. Not a particularly glorious role.

True. So now I’m not sure whom to believe. Anything (powerful women or pathetically disempowered women) could be a lie. Perhaps reading history written with as little feminism as possible can help.

Ayurvedic Yogi

I’ve said before that I’m married to an Indian. We go to India and surrounding areas frequently. India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have all already had female Prime Ministers decades ago but the ground reality for the common woman in those countries is bleak. Just because a small section of elite women hold political power in a country does not mean the entire nation of women are empowered. There is politics, then there is culture.

Mark

Reality for everyone (including men, you should notice) is bleak in such countries. Which is essentially entirely due to a handful of factors: 1) poverty, or economic underdevelopment, and therefore an economy based on physical labor (i.e., farming manufacturing), requiring men (usually the physically stronger gender) to enter the workforce and women to stay at home; 2) high infant mortality rate (which requires women to have more children to sustain the population than in wealthier countries) and 3) lower life expectancy, which means women are fertile, pregnant, or rearing small children for a higher fraction of their life, exacerbating the necessity/expediency of gender-based division of labor.

See, it has little to do with empowerment; and everything to do resources and economics. If you want to improve life were women (and men too, I hope) in those countries, economic development is the answer. And almost certainly the only answer. Plus, I think the thesis of the article was the opposite of what you’re saying: she wasn’t arguing that women are empowered because they can now hold office, but rather that they were empowered even when or if they didn’t possess political power because their power was in other spheres of life.

But you’re a woman, so you don’t really know what you’re saying. If he wants to know what you think, he’ll just ask your husband, lol.

Nergal

“Just because a small section of elite women hold political power in a country does not mean the entire nation of women are empowered.”

Then you acknowledge the same reality for men. Just because some white men hold high office doesn’t mean that men in general are empowered in relation to women. I’d agree with this point all day long. “The patriarchy” is a giant crock of shit, and putting people who look like you in high offices doesn’t solve a single goddamn problem for your group. Nothing but “Amens” from me. I’m just wondering why you dumbasses actually had to DO IT in order to come to this conclusion. Any MORON could have told you the same thing,without even straining themselves, just by using their noggin a little.

Nergal

“We have a word to describe the society that will eventually evolve if such an effort is successful. It’s not patriarchy.”

I think a word that hits much closer to the mark is “slavery”. Women were always allowed to own the works of their own hands,just as men were allowed to own the house, which they built with theirs.Feminists want to take men’s works away from them and give them to women,without compensating (Yeah,they think they’re “compensating” men by cutting their balls off and hectoring them for it, but that’s not how economics work. They’re not giving men something men value in return for their goods and labor, they’re handing men a pile of shit and TELLING them to value it like it was a stack of gold coins) them. The word for that is slavery,feudalism, or serfdom.

sqt

Your household sounds a lot like mine. My husband does take care of the finances because he’s a financial consultant and it makes a lot of sense to do it that way. Plus- I hate paying bills (though I do a very good job of handling them when I have to).

The real point is that we have a division of labor that empowers both of us in different ways. We definitely fall into the more traditional roles- and thank goodness for that. I couldn’t be happier about it. Like Mr. JB, my husband doesn’t do much without my approval– though he could if he wanted to. But he’s not an asshole, as so many feminists would like to believe a traditional guy like him must be, and respects my role as his partner.

And you are confusing “patriarchy” with “fundamentalist religious bullshit”, the basic scourge of the planet. Men rule in those societies because FOLLOW THE MONEY. It’s the simplest, most effective form of economic exploitation the world has ever seen.

I have no problem with faith and religion right up until some fucking wingnut decides HIS imaginary friend is going to govern MY life.

Fuck the fuck off.

You worship whomever you like. You pray to whomever you like. You have faith in the leadership and guidance of whomever you like.

But when you come into my world and tell me your imaginary friend is claiming domain over my life, then all y’all can fuck off.

The minute you mention gender relations in a country like Pakistan, you are dealing with primarily religion. India is likewise frequently torn with religious violence.

To say you didn’t mention imaginary friends is sophistry.

Pakistan = fundamentalist religion

Not that long ago Ireland was also gripped by religious insanity. The dentist who died because she wasn’t given medical attention based on religious principles suggests that Ireland STILL has some problems.

Plenty of pockets in the US are also suffering the scourge of religious fundamentalism.

Mark

Oh, rest assured, in a couple decades Ireland will be fully bereft of “religious insanity” and be just like Sweden or the Baltic countries, and all will be happy. /sarcasm.

At the risk of derailing the relevance of this thread even further, you seem subscribe to the straw man version of the abortion issue in which the only reason anyone would ever want to restrict access to abortion in any way is because of Jesus or something. Incidentally, that has nothing to do with it. Where people fall on which side of the issue depending on their beliefs is incidental; a matter of circumstance; it does not change that the essence of the issue, which is if or when during a pregnancy or thereafter a fetus or infant begins to meet the criteria to warrant its status as a legal person; and the comparative calculus of the rights of those involved to determine which rights outweigh which other ones. It is not, at core, a religious position to support restricting the process. One could, I should note, just as easily blame all the pro-abortion people (or one could blame atheism, or communism, or whatever, if as polemically inclined as you are) for that doctor who recently killed several already born infants after they had survived the abortion procedure. But what then would be the point?

It isn’t bold or ‘sassy’ or ‘just politically incorrect’ or whatever to deliberately misrepresent the views and beliefs of others to indulge one’s own indignation. No, it’s just a sign of intellectual immaturity.

I am more than willing to consider scientific and/or rational objections to abortion on the basis of neural activity, etc.

But it’s pretty intellectually dishonest to pretend that most of the objections to abortion are NOT based on religious principles.

They HAVE to be, because as of yet, we do not have the scientific technology or knowledge to determine at what precise point neural activity, for example, indicates that full consciousness and therefore personhood has been achieved.

No doubt, one day we will, and that will be a debate that I will be very interested in. But at the moment, objection to abortion is based primarily on religious principles.

I think I can safely object to that rationale while waiting for science to catch up so that we can have a debate based on reason and evidence.

Z

I honestly don’t understand why fundamentalist Christians are so screechy about abortion. If you abort a fetus, that soul goes straight to heaven according to their theology. So I don’t get all the hand wringing. Conversely, someone who would abort the baby probably isn’t a fundamentalist Christian and therefore would likely raise the child with no religion or a different religion… child grows up without the “right faith”, dies, and goes to hell (according to fundamentalist Christians), and yet… fundamentalists… are ANTI abortion. It makes NO logical sense whatsoever.

As for me, I believe it’s a life, and personally do believe in a soul, but… I don’t believe the soul enters until later, and even if it did… as the mother I would have the divine right to veto a living soul using my body as a transport tunnel to this reality. I would exercise that right if necessary no matter what anyone else thought about it.

I honestly don’t understand why fundamentalist Christians are so screechy about abortion

Why are they so screechy? Political posturing and inter-tribal dynamics.

You see, evangelical Christians weren’t always opposed to abortion. Around the time Roe v Wade was decided, most fundamentalist denominations supported abortion (not to mention contraception). In 1971 the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution affirming legal abortion to protect the life and health of the mother, including her emotional health: essentially abortion on demand.

So what changed? Politics. Abortion was thought by the likes of Jerry Falwell to be a great vehicle to insert fundamentalist Christianity into politics and increase their influence on the Republican party. All they had to do was reinterpret the “inerrant” Bible to make an argument the exact opposite of what they were claiming only 10 years before. And it worked.

Really? Holy crap, I didn’t know that! (not being sarcastic, LOL. It’s hard to tell in text.) Going to read those links. I just always assumed they were always pro-life and never heard an alternate argument.

Z

It’s also interesting that “emotional health” was seriously considered. I think that’s really important, and a lot of people don’t seem to understand that for “some” women, carrying a child to term and giving birth would be an unnecessary psychological trauma. To further force her to either give up her whole life whether she wanted a child or not to raise said child, or suffer more in giving the child up while her hormones and chemicals are screaming at her to keep and protect the child… the whole thing is an exercise in pointless cruelty.

I think motherhood can be a beautiful thing, but like sex, without consent it can be a very ugly thing. Consent makes all the difference here. I also get that women pretty much “had” to have babies “back in the day”, but there were also a lot more social protections in place which nearly guaranteed a woman who had a baby also had a dedicated husband/protector/provider to help her, who would stick around because of all the various social and religious pressures to not abandon responsibilities.

Mark

I went to a Catholic high school, and that doesn’t conform to my experience, They (theology teachers) were pretty clear about their argument being based on personhood. Their argumentation was indeed based on neurological developments usually occurring around the 6-8th week of pregnancy.

Furthermore, the answer to the “we don’t know yet” argument was simple; better safe than sorry. Now I gather that pro-abortions arguments use a similar reasoning toward the mother’s right not to be unnecessarily pregnant with a non-person; but if it’s a schoedinger’s cat situation (we don’t know if what’s inside is alive or not), then one position confers greater priority to the box (the woman, perhaps we should say Schroedinger’s uterus, lol), the other confers greater importance to the life; and one could argue that a life matter more than freedom of movement; that killing someone is worse than forcing someone to do something they don’t want to.

If you can’t find the non-religious arguments for restricting abortion, then you didn’t look very hard. I frankly don’t understand the association. I see no reason why more strictly religious people couldn’t be more pro-choice and more atheists/agnostics be pro-life. It has nothing to do with religion. There are even groups of atheists who support restricting abortion; easy to find with google. The association is as much an arbitrary artifact of history and circumstance as the association of the states’ rights movement with the South, or the association of the social welfare movement with socialism (in Bismarck’s German and even to some extent Disraeli’s Britain it was reversed, conservatives, oddly enough, were the most successful proponents of social welfare, but I’m digressing). Point being, by what stretch of the imagination does the idea that pulling something out of a vagina makes it a person rational or scientific? Tell me, in what respect is a 6 month old infant more of a person than an adult pig? Why can we kill on but not the other? Indeed, until the child begins to talk, what is it that justifies its special status as a person? I know for a fact that adult hyenas are more person-like than human infants. Point being, the lines you draw are at least as arbitrary as anyone else’s.

Z

For me it’s not so much about whether or not it’s a person/life as much as it is about whether or not that life requires MY body to survive. If it does, then no, you cannot FORCE me to keep it. If I have to throw myself down some stairs, it’s gone. Bottom line, my body, my divine right to determine if life is coming into the world through me. Whatever other people’s opinions or current laws about the issue. It’s one issue I would die for. Nothing is getting through this gate, period. At the same time, I’m not a moron… and use birth control. My window is also closing, so the odds of me “needing the abortion option” are fairly slim. I’d “take the shot” if necessary, though. (the hitman analogy, not syringe.)

I don’t care one way or the other what someone thinks of me for that. There are very few “I will die for this issue if you stand in my way” issues in my life. That’s one of them. I just feel that strongly about not bringing life here. Nobody else has to fully understand or get it, I just believe that “for me” it’s absolutely wrong to bring life here.

Mark

Well, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with independence from other human beings as a prerequisite to having rights (for example, infants dependent on their mothers; or for late-term abortions, if the fetus could survive outside, is still someone’s prerogative to kill it?. In the end, then, when not a question of life, it is a question the comparative calculus the rights involved.

Frankly, I’ve never cared how strongly people feel about what. I try as much as possible to take my feelings out of the equation. Some people feel very strongly about, and on cannot even discuss this with them; the moment it is mentioned, for example, my mother generally devolves into emotions, indignation. I’m not even “allowed” to press the issue. But feeling most strongly about an issue does not give one automatic rights to define the terms of the debate, or dictating which opinions are allowed in the debate and which aren’t. And much as it may be against the spirit of this blog, I generally think people should aspire to see their opponents as they really are, not as the caricatures they like to believe them to be.

Z

Mark,

The point though, in this issue, is that it is SO intensely personal to people that it’s just not something that 99% of the population is going to be able to not have “feelings” about. And my point is simply that I honestly don’t care what happens. I will do what I have to do should I ever have to do it. End of story.

Now, I do not care what other people believe. If they are against abortion, they shouldn’t have one. If they want to fight to overturn Roe V. Wade, hey whatever, more power to them. The time it would take to make it actually illegal everywhere in this country, if they made actual forward momentum on the issue now… my uterus would be shut down for business by that time anyway. No skin off my nose. And since I’m not bringing anybody here… I don’t have to worry about their rights (hypothetical future people in my line that is dying with me).

Note that I’m not defining terms of the debate or dictating anything to anyone. I am simply telling you what *I* will do if a fetus ever attaches to my uterus. I do not CARE what you do or what the law does or what anybody else does. My sovereignty over my body is absolute or I am willing to die. Period. I will happily die for this if necessary. Not to control you or any other person, but to control my OWN business. And whether or not life passes between my thighs is absolutely MY business.

I don’t see my “opponents” in any given way and don’t consider that I have opponents. What I have is a clear mission statement if XYZ should happen.

Ayurvedic Yogi

“Masculine and feminine are not culturally constructed. ”

Oh sure they are. And I said “largely”, not totally.

One example: pink is considered a feminine color in mainstream US pop culture.

phatuous

Using pink as an example that masculine and feminine are culturally constructed doesn’t seem particularly relevant. the color pink is just a chosen symbol, and the fact that different cultures may pick different symbols to represent femininity is hardly surprising. Different cultures use different symbols, sounds, and pictograms to describe water, but that hardly means that “water” is a socially contructed concept.

Femininity, like water, is recognizable regardless of the symbol(s) used to depict it. There are traits that are universally considered masculine or feminine, and they undercut and shape all human culture and always have. One of my favorite pieces of evidence for this is the stories from women who’ve taken testosterone and found themselves becoming more masculine, and of men who’ve lost their testicles (either due to issues such as cancer or by choice as in sex change) and found themselves becoming feminine.

There’s a reason why eunuchs are present in royal courts throughout history and in many different cultures. Castration cuts off the source of testosterone and masculine men become… feminine. We do it to dogs and cats for the same reason. We cut off their balls to make them less aggressive, less territorial, etc.

I think maybe BJ was onto something and that essentially you’re misconstruing the symbolism associated with femininity/masculinity with the actual concepts themselves. The symbol may be culturally constructed, but that says nothing about what the symbol represents.

American Yogi

“And you are confusing “patriarchy” with “fundamentalist religious bullshit”

No. I’m not. Show me where I have done that.

I have not mentioned religion in relation to patriarchy at all, much less fundamentalist religion, much less confused the two, or three.

You’re starting to annoy the shit out of me with your airy-fairy bullshit.

Address the issues, leave your imaginary friends out of the discussion and respect my rules.

Or you’re out.

someguy

He didn’t say anything about religion. All he said was that what was deemed feminine and masculine is mostly western constructs. In other areas men and women did what was necessary; concepts of femininity and masculinity be damned. If not enough men were around to lay down bricks to build houses (usually after a major war), then women would role up their sleeves and do it. If the woman needed to be away from the children and home leaving them unattended, the man would be there to nurture the kids and look after them (In south/south-east asia many working class women work as house maids in foreign countries leaving their husbands behind to take care of the kids)

Alex

“You worship whomever you like. You pray to whomever you like. You have faith in the leadership and guidance of whomever you
But when you come into my world and tell me your imaginary friend is claiming domain over my life, then all y’all can fuck off.”

this i believe, can be summed up as every atheists argument. issue is the “wingnuts” that can be as bad as feminists about it. don’t most holy books have something about tolerance? also, i have never heard of a female Indian construction worker. if one exists, please show me

k thanks. glad that went through. didn’t see it when i posted it at first, thought it got moderated

American Yogi

“also, i have never heard of a female Indian construction worker. if one exists, please show me”

Go to India. You’ll see millions of them. And you’ll see men in the ladies garments shops doing all the measuring, mending and sewing. Its considered a “masculine” job there and goes back to what I was saying about “masculine” and “feminine” being largely culturally constructed.

Here in US meat is considered “man food”.

In India about 50% of the male population is vegetarian. Nothing masculine or feminine about it at all.

Traveling far and wide and living in cultures vastly different than your own is a great learning experience that I recommend for anyone who can do it.

Will completely turn everything you’ve ever thought about the world, humanity, men and women, completely on its head.

Ayurvedic Yogi

“You’re starting to annoy the shit out of me with your airy-fairy bullshit.”

What airy fairy bullshit? I only deal in logic and very clear concise concepts.

All of my comments reflect this.

But if you think you can drudge up something airy fairy from something I wrote here, please do. I’d be well amused.

And I have no idea what you are talking about with “imaginary friend”.

Mark

I have to say, though I’ve disagreed with you before on things, and think that gender is only partly socially constructed, but also largely biological, I fully understand your confusion. I read through your posts on this thread, saw no reference to religion or theology at all. Even supposing you’ve made references thereto in the past, her angry tangent against you here for past remarks would be unwarranted, imo; it’s one thing to rebuke someone for disagreeing with you; it’s quite another to positively rebuke the mere presence of someone who in the past has indicated they disagree with you.

I suppose some people, after having read enough Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, start to see the face of Billy Graham in everyone and everything, become apoplectic, and develop a compulsion gratuitously (and irrelevantly, in this case) insult everyone who doesn’t share their particular atheistic perspective of the cosmos. But I guess that’s speculation on my part.

Inter-gender power can only be given as gift and can never taken by force or coersion. Therefore, in any society, men and women are the way they are because for better or worse, the other gender wants it like that.

Moderating and determining the boundaries around what discussion I will permit is not tyranny.

It’s accepting that once I have created a community, I have some responsibility to keep that community safe. There are not a whole lot of spaces on the internet to discuss the issues we discuss here, while there are plenty dedicated to the perpetuation and dissemination of the very ideas I challenge.

Just as early abolitionists would have keep their pro-slavery commenters in severe check, I will keep my pro-feminist commenters in severe check.

And yes, I think this social movement to gain basic human rights for everyone, including men, is on par with abolition.

Mark

To be fair, it doesn’t even seem to be an issue of rules even; rules in order to be respected by anyone kid of have to be stated.

Now, hurling insults is I suppose just as effective a way to let everyone know who’s welcome and who’s not. But if it had been specified before hand which groups you don’t like or don’t want posting, then it would save everyone from wasting time bothering with it.

Its one thing to moderate insults and name calling, however, once one starts to censor ideas they don’t like and removing comments they don’t agree with. They themselves lose the right to be read and/or listened too.

I’ve debated many feminists down through the years and I can always tell when I’ve won the debate just as soon as the insults, name calling and moderation starts.

Unfortunately far too many MRA’s have resorted to the very same tactics feminists use against those who refuse to agree with them whenever their agenda is challenged.

As I said before I will not exchange one form of intellectual tyranny for another and will not support the men’s movement as long as its self appointed leaders continue heading in that direction.

Z

So the alternative is that JB should allow anyone to say anything no matter what in the interest of free speech even if it makes her engagement with her own blog horribly unpleasant?

What if this were a physical house? You can set whatever rules of decorum you want. No shoes in the house is one of my favorites because it’s not common here. People sometimes get huffy or weird about it. But it’s MY house and I don’t want your dirty, germy shoes in a house where I walk around bare foot all the time. That’s my rule. I can kick anybody out of my house for wearing shoes in it. They can say I’m a fascist and they are never coming back. Good, because I don’t want them there.

I’m pretty sure JB isn’t going to cry in her Cheerios over the people who won’t listen to her when she draws lines. Whether you like the lines or not. This is not a “public forum”. This is not “constitutionally protected speech” (something we have in the US), because it’s someone’s private internet property.

Debates that happen online leave everyone with lots of time and quiet place to think and respond. In web space, the loudest screamer won’t win, they will just look stupid/like a bully.

Mark

The louder screamer already does win. Or rather, the larger fundraiser. American elections usually come down to something like ‘who do you like more, the oil industry or the banking industry?’

I can’t say I wholly disagree with David Green, but he may as well accept it as the logical conclusion of identity politics. Each group out to get as much power and funding as possible for itself. A “war of all against all.” Why should one group ignore its own vested interest and pretend that all the others are altruistic in their pursuits, when they are so obviously self-interested?

I’m not sure how that works. How does allowing unpleasant or dissenting commenters help them raise their funds? Especially when we’re talking about relatively small blogs, known only in certain circles? I’m pretty sure feminists will copy our own comments, twist them, and use them as proof MRAs need to be fought, whether we moderate their comments or not.

The fact is that Judy has chosen a word with an extremely negative connotation to describe herself. Its the same thing as a woman who chooses to walk out in public dressed like a slut who then gets offended for being seen as a slut.

Z

Well, congratulations on having an opinion. Is what JB calls herself really the hill you want to die on?

No Judy it doesn’t. When someone deletes a comment they don’t agree with it breaks the thread and always leaves a doubt in my mind as to the true motives of the moderator.

I’m also having a hard time taking you seriously as a MRA for these reasons:

1} because you don’t know shit. This statement is not only arrogant but implies the image of a closed mind.

2) Paring the word bitch with your name brings three meanings to mind all of which are negative and do not suggest strength. The word is used to denote a female dog and when a man calls a woman a bitch he is either demeaning her by claiming that she is his personal sexual property or that she has a very unpleasant personality.

3) The title of this post strongly suggests that you are in reality a female supremest and implies that your husband is so weak kneed that he doesn’t dare make a decision without your permission. My dad chose to live that way in regards to both of my stepmothers and it cost him his life.

In regards to the issues men face today I have for many years been ahead of the curve. Years before MRA’s began telling men not to marry I was already advising the single men I knew of what they would be facing if they chose to disregard my advice and married anyway. When Paul Elam became editor of MND I wrote to him under my DaPoet id and suggested to him that what was needed wasn’t so much a men’s rights movement but a human rights movement that embraced the rights of both genders. So that I wasn’t surprised when it was announced on AVfM that the movement would henceforth be the MHRM. Indeed I was wondering what took so long for that to come about.

User names should be very carefully chosen as the image the name suggests is just as important as a first impression. And the image the word bitch strongly suggests is that of an abusive, bad tempered, demanding, unreasonable and out of control female who needs to be put down by any means necessary.

Z

David,

You think women need to be “put down” for being bitches? Are you freaking kidding me? You know… for all your screeching about “tyranny”, it’s kind of a miracle JB hasn’t already blocked you.

I’m not sure if JB sees herself as a member of MRA or not. Maybe her blog and her subject matter just naturally coincides. If you think she’s a “female supremacist” you haven’t read much of her blog. She actively and frequently calls the female gender to task for its bullshit and just as actively and frequently defends men and boys.

I have a blog that is “anti-feminist” but it is NOT MRA. I’m a traditionalist when it comes to gender roles. Traditional gender roles is not “female supremacy” despite MRA insistence to the contrary. Both genders gave things up and both genders got things in return. It was division of labor that utilized hardwired natural tendencies in most males and females.

MRAs hate that. It’s not “my fault” feminists have created a situation in which many men feel oppressed enough to not even want to have any of their old roles… roles that many men carried with pride once upon a time. Thing is… I don’t really need all of male humanity to agree with what I like and the way I want to live… I only need one. Which I have. I don’t really care what everybody else does with their lives. What I do know, though, is… of the women and men I know… those who live more traditional gender roles and have more traditional division of labor, tend to have less problems in their marriage. This isn’t to say a totally egalitarian man does dishes and laundry and woman mows lawn relationship can’t work. It can IF both parties can agree without nagging.

Z having been deceived and taken advantage of one too many times by taking others at their word or face value. Has led me to give considerably less credence to what someone says and far more weight to their actual actions. Words deceive but actions tell the tale and so far Judy’s actions mark her as a female supremest.

Yikes! Maybe you’re right 🙂 Then from now on, I will be known as Emma the Calm and Happy.

Nicky

If you’re going to complain about the screen name JB uses, perhaps it would help if you read it correctly. She has not ‘paired her name’ with bitch – she has used the adjective judgy, not the name Judy. The title of this post is rather tongue in cheek. Your inability to understand the thrust and humour of JB’s blog is hardly her fault. As is your inability to understand the full range of the implications of the word ‘bitch’ – there are far more than the 3 you stated. If a person self-identifies as a bitch, it most emphatically DOES imply strength and refusal to compromise to spare other’s feelings. Pretty apt really.

You accuse JB of arrogance, while insinuating that Paul Elam’s addition of ‘human’ into MRM was due entirely to YOUR influence, and wonder why it took him so long to take your advice? (Couldn’t possibly be that he thought of it all by himself, having rejected your suggestion to, well, not have a MRM but a HRM instead!)

If she bans you, rest assured, it will not be because she disagrees with you, but more likely because you’re a hypocrite who isn’t even bothering to read her blog properly before commenting, so why should those of us who DO want to have a discussion on the topic at hand have to bother with reading your irrelevant posts?

Okay, David, we get it. You’re a special snowflake who is ahead of the curve. Here’s a cookie.

Personally, I take JB seriously because she thinks things through and writes about them well. And what she writes is true.

What I don’t take seriously are people who pompously attempt to dictate what others can and cannot do on their own blogs, issuing pronouncements on what arbitrary rules others must follow, while trumpeting their supposed superior experience and “credentials.”

So thanks for introducing yourself as the sparkly unicorn elder statesmen of MRA. I shall now commence to ignore you…

And I doubt David is capable of realizing anything other than acknowledgment of his own “authority” and general awesomeness. Fortunately, I couldn’t care less what “David” thinks or says. Completely irrelevant.

Judy Members of the Kull Klux Clan wear hoods. The protesters in Toronto wore masks. Todays MRA’s hide behind false ids. Engaging in ridicule and mockery as Lost Sailor has done from behind the relative safety of a false id is just as cowardly as wearing a hood or a mask.

Lost Salior Ridicule and mockery demonstrate the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of those who resort to using it when their dishonest arguments fail. This is why feminists rely on ridicule and mockery so often and I don’t.

Some MRA sites ban and moderate a lot, and I don’t like it either. But most seem pretty liberal with speech. Plus I don’t hear them calling for laws against speech they don’t like, so I wouldn’t say they are as bad as the feminists when it comes to that.

However, sometimes I feel that maybe some of them would abandon principles and use same tactics, if they had the chance… But so far, they haven’t been the majority. MRAs are not even near the level of feminists in that matter.

Emma far too many MRA’s are already heading in that direction so that it is only a matter of time before they become as bad as the feminists in regards to denying the free speech of those who disagree with them.

Liz

This place is far from an echo chamber. I’ve disagreed with JB on numerous occasions and she has never censored my commentary.

You have it backwards. Sites that are unmoderated become flame-fests, and THAT leads to echo chamber discussions where no one of merit would want to participate. I think JB and PPP do an excellent job running this site and screening out the garbage.

This is not a sounding board site for Feminazis, they have their own places to go and exchange ideas among themselves without stinking up this place. What you are describing is intellectual garbage. Allowing garbage in without a filter is exactly the opposite of constructive discussion.

Z

Yeah, and I’m like… “I’ll kill anything that attaches to my fetus” and I know how JB feels about that. I mean, dude, come on. Also… David is still here, so JB is hardly a tyrant. I would have already blocked him.

Since this blog is open to anyone on word press and isn’t restricted by being marked private this is not a private blog. Indeed your logic would allow word press to delete this blog and the blog of every single mra using word press. Of course mra’s would claim censorship but turn about is fair play.

Z

Technically WordPress COULD delete any blog that went against their stated TOS, that is “their rules of engagement.” And people could whine about it all they want to, but WordPress can choose to extend or take away service from anybody they want. One doesn’t have to be on wordpress.com one can use a wordpress.org template they purchased and get an outside host if they so choose.

Censorship is still censorship no matter the reason used to justify it.

Z

NO, David. Censorship is when a government prohibits speech/shuts down your right to speak. When a private business makes private business decisions or when a private person makes personal or business decisions, that is not “censorship”. It is “especially” not censorship when the person does not control the message everywhere. i.e. there was a big argument over Amazon “censoring” some erotica a year or two ago. Well, the reality is that they are a corporation, not a government, and they have the legal right to sell or not sell whatever they wish and it is not censorship. Now if the government made writing and distributing that sort of erotica illegal, THAT would be censorship. The main issue with actual censorship is the law and restriction from distribution, not just in one place, but everywhere where people could reasonably go to access that information/material.

But people still argued that Amazon may as well be a censor because they have so much power. And I guess someone can run with that argument. Just how powerful in the grand scheme of the Internet and blogging do you think JB is?

Your inability to properly use words like censorship and tyranny makes me feel that you are too overly emotional to engage in conversations honestly. Men often pride themselves on being able to have discussions in a calm, rational, and logical manner without resorting to being overly-emotive or using hyperbole. You must be an outlier.

“So the alternative is that JB should allow anyone to say anything no matter what in the interest of free speech even if it makes her engagement with her own blog horribly unpleasant?”

JB will do whatever she wants, but I see nothing wrong with that alternative you suggested. I don’t ban or moderate anyone. Many others I know and respect, don’t. Even if most comments were trolls, I’d still keep them. I like to hear what everyone has to say, even if it’s BS or insults, because the latter will only reinforce my points anyway. The only reason I’d be willing to ban or moderate is if someone tried to take over the site and turn it into a community I don’t agree with (like turn it racist).

Also, I recently watched a video by Thunderfoot, and he made this point: a blog is not like a house, It’s a public space. I agree. Sure, we can moderate, it’s no big deal, but I’d personally rather avoid it. Makes us look bad.

Z

There is nothing “wrong” with a free-for-all, no, but it’s also not compulsory. And it’s BS for people to act like anybody who doesn’t do things how “they would do them” is some intellectual tyrant.

Question: And please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m genuinely curious to know… do you think your preference on how to run a blog makes you morally superior? Because… maybe I’m hearing something that isn’t there at all, but like the above “intellectual tyranny” comments from David, I keep getting a strong whiff of moral superiority like anybody who has rules in their own space is somehow unenlightened.

I also think people have a lot more gall in making demands on what they should and shouldn’t be allowed to do in other people’s spaces when it’s online as opposed to in the real world. Because at least I “think” we all still have enough class and tact to allow someone to set rules inside their own physical home… no playing ball in the house, no shoes in the house, don’t throw things, etc.

A blog is a public space like my front porch is a public space. You can see it from across the street, you can come up and ring my bell and ask to come in, but you cannot demand to do what you want on my property. In the end, ownership is about who has the power to remove whom. So no, blogs aren’t public spaces. They are spaces that can be viewed in public, they can be made open to everybody, but it is not a requirement of their existence.

A blog is someone else’s intellectual and cyber-property. If you aren’t paying the bills to keep the lights on (domain name, hosting), then no, you cannot demand anything.

I just think banning and moderating makes us look like we either have no arguments, or can’t stand the heat. It’s not about moral superiority, and I never said no one should be allowed to have their own rules on their site. I just don’t recommend it for those who fight institutionalized stupidity. It just looks bad.

No, I don’t think a blog is like your front porch. People being on your front porch can be a danger physically, and interfere with your life in ways that online commenters can’t (unless they doxx you or threaten, which moderation won’t fix anyway). How things work online and IRL are different, and thus I don’t find them comparable. Asking someone to not be on your porch is fully reasonable. Moderating, while ok in .. moderation, can start to look petty if you get too trigger-happy.

I think it’s in blogger’s best interests to not moderate much. Unlike in their house, people coming to your truth-loving blog won’t damage anything. Or am I wrong?

Z

I hear what you’re saying, Emma. I guess my counterargument is that we can’t make all our life choices based on what things “look like” to people who don’t even like us. And by “us” I don’t mean any particular group here, just… the general human “us”.

LOL @ “institutionalized stupidity”

How things work online and offline are different, you’re right, EXCEPT that you still have the right to define what goes on on your property whether other people like it or not.

Over-moderation is a self-correcting problem. Anybody who turns into a potentate about it drives off their blog audience. It’s the same way when one is a control freak in real life. There is a balance to be struck between one’s rights to draw their boundaries and one’s willingness to compromise with others for the sake of social cohesion.

“You think” it’s better for bloggers not to moderate much. And that’s great for you. But not everybody thinks the same thing. As for how much “damage” it can do, well I guess that’s all a matter of perspective. The bottom line is that I don’t have an inalienable right to comment on JB’s blog or any other person’s blog, and neither do you.

Sure. Everything you say is absolutely right and still doesn’t contradict what I said 😉 I don’t desire an inalienable right to comment what I want on anyone’s site, and I don’t burden people with suggestions and advice, if they said no.

Re: do you think your preference on how to run a blog makes you morally superior?

_______________________

No I don’t. However I do expect an honest debate while those who delete comments because they don’t agree with them are IMO cowards. Arguments like might makes right or a fetus is just a clump of cells are dishonest and saying so doesn’t make one morally superior in the least.

Z

Okay, but I don’t think it’s about “not agreeing with comments”. Maybe it’s just not liking somebody personally. Or maybe it’s not liking somebody’s tone and asking them to change it and them being rude and keeping it up. Maybe it’s someone who causes a lot of drama in general. I mean this is much more than a “oooh I disagree with your opinions about life”. It seems dishonest to frame it that way when most people who moderate are not moderating simply for different viewpoints.

Emma a troll is a derisive term used to describe any blogger who dares to post a comment that disagrees with the author of the blog they are visiting. It is used far too often and far to broadly and is a lot like calling a man a rapist simply because he tried to flirt with someone who didn’t find him attractive.

Tell me about it – I got called a troll a lot of times, by MRAs and feminists alike, but I never meant to troll. Trolls do exist though. These are people who come to mock, rile up, lie and be nasty in general, while bringing nothing else to the conversation. They usually show up when you’ve done something “bad” and now everyone wishes you got raped or calls you ugly for no reason. But yes, many bloggers seem to call everything a troll.

Reproductive rights for men have been around for a few hundred years already and its called the Condom.

There is also a later development, the vasectomy.

And now vasectomies are even reversible so there is no excuse not to exercise one’s right not to be a father if one doesn’t want to be.

As far as Mrs. Virtuous, she would not have been overseeing men in the field. She and her children would have been out in that field working right alongside their husbands and fathers, as are most laborer females outside of the modern post-industrial West even today.

And as you roam through the villages and rural areas you can also see many instances of women toiling in the fields and men sitting on their hamocks smoking hookahs.

This is why I recommend to EVERYONE to travel as far and wide as you can to gain an accurate, as opposed to imagined and idealized, picture of the world.

I think the above photo of the Indian woman carrying bricks for construction on her head is illustrative of the fact that women are not just out there “supervising the back breaking labor of men.”

RICH women supervise the back-breaking labor of men. And women, when you get right down to abject poverty. No woman works in construction or in any other back-breaking occupation unless her alternative is to starve.

The poor are exploited, both men and women, by both men and women.

I’ve lived in China, sweetheart, and I hardly think I have an idealized picture of the world.

Mark

Vasectomies and condoms are pre-conception; abortion is post-conception. If a woman has the unrestricted right to terminate the pregnancy (I don’t think she should for even close to the whole 9 months, but that’s another issue), why shouldn’t the man have the right to terminate financial obligations to the child. If he can’t force her to have a kid once it’s conceived, why should she be able to force him to have a kid once it’s conceived.

Secondly, men have in every rural society don the majority of the field-work (exceptions occur in times of famine or war, when men are proportionately killed) and in urban industrial societies, the majority of paid labor.

Incidentally, today, some studies have even indicated that men do an equal amount of housework to women in the US, in addition to doing more paid labor. Feminist studies that promote the idea that men do little to no housework conveniently exclude traditionally male categories of housework, such as washing cars, painting the house, etc., while including even some recreational female activities as ‘work.’

And your anecdotal evidence can be just as easily refuted by anecdotal evidence. I know plenty of housewives who don’t even have kids at home; they just shop, watch TV, and gossip with friends all day while their husbands work their asses off to support them. See how that works. If, by the way, you’d like citations for those studies I mentioned on male vs. female housework, or on male predominance in fieldwork and industrial labor, I can post them tomorrow. It’s terribly late where I am, so I’m going to sleep momentarily.

Z

I agree that if a woman can abort a fetus a man should be able to opt out of child support. He’s not asked at all. I also find it irritating that male-related housework is often not counted as “housework”. Mr. Z does all the “fixing of stuff that breaks”, “moving heavy objects”, “hanging pictures and shades”, “yard work”. That’s a lot of damn housework. I don’t WANT him to wash a dish or cook a meal or do laundry. He does plenty. Outside of the occasions when he has to do the “man housework”, he gets to come home from his job and sit on his ass and do whatever the hell he wants while I wait on him because that’s just what you do for someone you love and want to take care of because they are taking care of you.

William

This post has such a ring of common sense truth. I have enjoyed reading that proverb to my wife for 28 years.

I occasionally lead large teams of men in the mining industry. I make the calls and I am responsible for the outcome. But I have always appreciated my wife’s point of view on many construction related issues. She even saved one young engineer’s career by pointing out some value and asking for some mercy when I was ready to send him packing.

Thank you for saying these things where many can hear them. God bless.

Alex

the condom doesn’t always work, and i really don’t feel like getting a series of potentially expensive surgeries just to avoid being tricked into being a father. also, vasectomies can be completely botched and condoms sabotaged fairly easily, being the thins strips of latex they usually are. with possibilities like that, i’d prefer a pill that disables me for a few hours. which i have seen indications of such a thing going around indonesia at the moment. you can bet your ass that feminists will do everything they can to make it difficult to get once it can reach most of the Western world because they get so much from that particular field, and they don’t want to give it up. plus, it would force some women to take responsibility about any pregnancies and would actively call out women sleeping around for “genes” (found an article about a woman who had extramarital affairs to get her kids the best genes while having her husband provide resources for them) or just women sleeping around who get pregnant and try to pass it off as the husband’s. so after going through that lengthy ramble, i’d really prefer having more at my disposal that surgery or a bit of latex while she’s got 5 forms of contraception.

One piece is missing. What if MEN give up on the patriarchy? I mean that little bit where we take care of families. Your article talks of women wrestling the tools of formal power away from the patriarchy, it does not consider that because men used to get prestige from these positions. Once that prestige is gone, and our presence at the top is seen as predation, we give them up for something more personally satisfying.

In my circumstance, I’ve given up on the patriarchal position of marriage. Since feminists made marriage a contract where women gat all the benefit and men get all the responsibility, I have no incentive.

We’ll see in about ten years how a society of mostly single mothers works out. I personally think the Chinese are going to hand us our ass.

I’m not much for conspiracy theories, but the fact remains that China’s one-child policy, combined with a preference for male children has given China the one thing it needs to take over the world: 30 million disposable males. No hopes of marrying or having children.

Perfect cannon fodder for a callous state.

30 million Chinese soldiers would take out the Middle East in approximately one day.

And the Chinese are well aware of that advantage. The students at the university where I taught in China pretty much just shrugged their shoulders at the thought of 30 million men dying.

When your population is +1 billion, 30 million doesn’t seem like a lot.

“It’s the price we have to pay”, was the general attitude.

Hmm. This may be of relevance to today’s post. Which I will get to after I get these little urchins out the door.

Joseph

Im reminded of the book by Laura Schlessinger called “Woman Power” that I read years ago. Very good read, and it talked about this very thing!

Sherlock

Ayurvedic/american yogi, your own yogic tradition is filled with writings on masculinity and femininity and from what I have read their descriptions mirror those of the twist tradition and both those eastern traditions views of masculinity and femininity match perfectly with my western views on the matter. The core of what masculine and feminine is IS universal and is derived from the effects of testosterone and estrogen. In addition to that cultures will make out all sorts of things that ARE in fact relative as ideals for men or women at any given time in order to serve the culture. They might make being a father the highest ideal for men or they might view trading in the market as manly because it is something the men, for pragmatic reasons, have ended up doing. Those things vary and are irrelevant, the core of masculinity and femininity does not.

Of course the end-goal of feminism–whether most feminists realize it or not–is not just the elimination of “the patriarchy” but the establishment of matriarchy. But they will deny, at least publicly, that supposed utopia of peace and harmony is the same as their definition of patriarchy with the sexes reversed: the domination and oppression of men by women. They can’t really admit that or it will sully their branding.

But, if you follow the tendrils of feminist “thought” to the dark corners of radical feminism, that’s precisely the goal…well, at least the first part of the goal. On rare occasion you can find a radical feminist discussion that admits the true goal: the final elimination of men entirely. While sane people see this for the fantasy madness that it is, there are not a few people out there who believe it. And we can’t say we weren’t warned. People like Dworkin and Mary Daly have been telling us about this for decades. Ever read the S.C.U.M. manifesto? It’s a mistake to dismiss it as fringe.

JB is quite correct that throughout most of the history of civilization, women generally had quite a lot of power and control in the sphere of their immediate families and local social settings (villages and towns, farming communities, etc.). I can confirm JB’s example of the women in Greek villages, having lived there for several years back in the day. I frequently traveled off the beaten path and a friend had a reconstructed old farm house on a hillside above a small village on Evvia, and I witnessed this dynamic frequently. Greek men can be full of bluster, but it’s the women that control the home and usually the village behind the scenes. (My friend’s GF would often join the village ladies in the afternoons where there were collectively shelling beans and such and her reports of their conversations could apparently cause even a porn star to blush: little Greek yaiyais, all in black, comparing the sexual technique and penis sizes of the village men, for example.)

Civilization has required there be a balance of power and control between men and women. If feminism is successful in wresting formal and informal power and control away from men while leaving them with the responsibilities, civilization will fall. I doubt that’s going to happen, but a lot of damage will be done before the fall is stopped…

Z

I don’t want to live in a world without men BUT… I would pay good money to be a fly on the wall to watch the feminists flipping out about all the stuff they didn’t realize they wouldn’t be able to get men to do anymore and have to now handle themselves. Power grids. Firefighting. Coal mining. Oil rigs. Construction. Combat. The list goes on and on. A couple of butch women who can do these kinds of jobs and wants to… is NOT enough.

someguy

Those worthless hypocrits will do precisely what the “evil white patriarchy” did: enslave and get third world women to do it. That’ll be when women in the rest of the world realize that feminism is a crock of shit and see it as women’s version of white colonialism.

Z

Oh probably. Only problem is, a lot of the work is stuff that is physically demanding and dangerous to the point that the average women physically CANNOT do it. Not PC to say in our currrent: “Anything you can do, I can do better” culture, but there it is. And good point about white colonialism. JB has talked about how feminism sort of ignores women who aren’t white and rich or white and upper middle class. Like all these white women who want to be “liberated” from raising their own children, hire a brown woman from a developing nation. I keep wondering when they’ll get called on that nonsense.

MNL

JB, thanks for the link to the Rogers article. But I was surprised to see the article is over 35 years old! I was then doubly surprised to search for its use as a reference (using the Web of Science/SSCI)–and I found absolutely none! I don’t point this out to negatively characterize the work. Rather, I point it out to show just how rare, or even how marginalized, this point of view has become. I’m no anthropologist, but it this perspective looks to me to be entirely ignored. Not refuted; just ignored. Interesting.

Yes. Dude I LIKE Patriarchy. The patriarchal structure was created to protect the women and children. Not to oppress them. And I’d rather have the traditionally female power… it’s in my DNA how to handle/use that power. And it’s a power that feels comfortable, like a well-fitted glove. The day I realized the house was “my domain” and that my power was there, was the last day I felt doing laundry was “demeaning”. (In my early twenties I was briefly influenced by some angry feminists, but quickly realized that women had it pretty good… until the feminists came along and screwed that up. Never content to let any woman be happy if THEY aren’t happy.)

Z

Oh, just remembered something else I was going to say… was watching some old movies lately, and I think anybody who thinks women in the 50s were in ANY way oppressed… should watch a lot of old movies. It becomes extremely clear who wields the real power at home, and it isn’t the man. Sure, Hollywood isn’t and never has been an accurate reflection of real life, but entertainment reflects real life attitudes.

start at 2
Did you have a pet cat as a child? (add 1)
Did you grow up in a single mom family? (add 1)
Did you lose your virginity while a minor? (add 2)
Were you sodomized while a minor? (add 2)
Are you over 40 years old? (add 1)
Are you post menopausal? (add 1)
Have you ever pulled a train? (add 3)
Have you ever been married? (subtract 1)
Do any of your children live with you? (reset to 2)
Do you cohabitate with a man? (reset to 1)
Are you married? (ask your husband for the answer)

really, David. JB is not interested in the piffle paffle debates on what goes on our blog. That’s normally my job. You suggest she just tends to her family, because we choose to moderate our comments? and you call yourself a humanist? fucking hell, I’ve read thru all your comment threads and you are one bitchier judge than judgybitch herself, PPP.

JB’s site has grown very quickly, and any place with so many comments and commentators quickly develops into a nonconstructive flame-fest without moderation. Then they become echo chambers. It’s the opposite of what you are asserting.

Case in point, look at the sheer number of responses and redirection completely off the topic in response to your posts alone at the tail end of this thread which prvoked a longwinded completely off-topic discussion between numerous commentators. If there were only a few participants, this isn’t a problem…but it becomes a large problem with the number of participants on that site (and growing, which would seem to indicate she is doing something right).

This place is not intended to be a sounding board for any and every ideolog who might want to visit, it’s her site and she chooses the direction.

Liz Judy has freely admitted that she has posted no rules for her blog and has no intention of doing so. Like all tyrants Judy makes up the rules as she goes and changes them on a whim just like the feminists she opposes.

Whenever one’s actions fails to match up with their words it is called hypocrisy and unfortunately, while Judy’s words show that she opposes feminism her actions justify the tactics the feminists use against MRA’s who dare to disagree with them on their blogs.

Those who defend this form of hypocrisy have chosen to be willfully dishonest, disgrace themselves as well as dishonor and betray the Men’s Human Rights Movement they claim to defend and promote.

This is why I could never identify with the “MRA” movement. Too many whiny assholes…

Jack Strawb

And here I’m thinking it’s because far too many identify as right-wing or libertarian. The right has always about abridging rights to achieve social aims. I was surprised to see so much left bashing in MRM comments sections.

Judy I see it only took about as long as the average feminist for you to show your true colors. I will add your name to my growing list of two faced bloggers who prefer to silence those who disagree with them as opposed to rising to the challenge of an honest debate.

Re: And I will add you to the list of assholes who think they have some sort of inherent right to decide how my blog runs.
___________________

Judy this claim is patently false and you know it. Just like the countless feminists I’ve debated down through the years you can’t stand being criticized and called out on your penchant to engage in intellectual tyranny as so many MRA’s do these days. I personally don’t care how you run your blog however as long as MRA’s, such as yourself, continue to verbally bully, use dishonest arguments, and delete comments simply because the commentor dared to disagree with them. I will not and can not support the Men’s Human Rights Movement with a clear conscience since that would only be exchanging one form of intellectually tyranny for another.

In fact your reaction to my comments has aptly demonstrated just how intellectually and morally bankrupt the average todays’s MRA’s have become. As well as just how closely they are following in the footsteps of the leading lights of the Civil Rights Movement – Jessie Jackson comes to mind – as they retreat from the moral high ground and blindly descend into absolute intellectual dishonesty.

Troy

172 words of what you stand against and not a single word of what you stand for….. sigh…. Professionally Outraged Troll appears to be outraged.

Keevo

Not one single, solitary example given of this “intellectual tyranny” of course.

So in an ideal society women wield the real power and allow the men to delude themselves into thinking they have any say at all.

That, if anything, is the biggest argument for bachelorhood I have ever read. The only way a man can be truly independent, prioritise his own happiness and make his own decisions is by remaining single.

Marriage is for idiots.

Troy

I think this is a fascinating thesis re: the formal and informal manifestations of power. Nowadays it seems as if women still have the informal power and have made significant strides in the last 40 years in areas that could be considered formal power : i.e. divorce laws, child support, physical custody presumptions, Title IX, sexual harassment, quotas, etc.

So how are men going to react? How is this going to impact our culture? Are they just gonna accept it? Go MGTOW? Go on strike?

jabrwok

Look to the ghettos for your answer. The black inner-cities in the U.S., with their 70%+ illegitimacy rates, and the comparable stats in the UK’s white, dolist population. Male/Female relations are returning to those that applied in a state of nature, when a man had no assurance that any given child was *his*, and hence no significant emotional investment in any particular woman or child. Without that investment, then why should men bother to put their lives on the line, or work more than necessary for survival? Women become occasional bed-buddies and are otherwise largely ignored. Kids grow up without good role-models, while their putative “fathers” don’t work any more than they must to get by.

Yeah, I kind of figured you to be a Dominant, Ms. Judgy Bitch. Cheers! We can’t all be married to alphas however and some of us are just fine with being “abused” in relative squalor by men who take everything we have to say with a grain of salt. It takes all kinds and it is never too late to have a happy childhood. Thank you so much for the great link, I passed it on to http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/a-doofuss-guide-to-feminism/ since clearly he could use a citation or two 😉

This entire article hit the nail square on the head. I’m tired of some women telling me I want dominance and power. I’m just a man who wants to work and provide, to feel important and respected. To love and be loved.

My parents had the relationship you described, with my father working in a “powerful” job while my mother stayed at home (but had real power). They recognized it and had no problem with it, both feeling needed and happy, and loving each other for it. It seems like nowadays, people resent each other for the exact same thing.